Japan’s Demographic Disaster

Japan is faced with an unprecedented population challenge that will have social, economic, and political consequences for years to come.

Last August, I wrote an article for The Diplomat that discussed some of the issues Japan is facing in relation to population decline. As I noted, the population has dropped for three years in a row. Recently, the Japanese government announced that the population decrease for 2012 is expected to be 212,000—a new record—while the number of births is expected to have fallen by 18,000 to 1,033,000—also a record low. Projections by the Japanese government indicate that if the current trend continues, the population of Japan will decline from its current 127.5 million to 116.6 million in 2030, and 97 million in 2050. This is truly astonishing and puts Japan at the forefront of uncharted demographic territory; but it is territory that many other industrial countries also are beginning to enter as well.

Predicting the consequences of Japan's demographic shift is difficult. And it is important to remember that these are projections; it seems to me unlikely that this trend will continue for the next century without some sort of intervening political, cultural, or economic factors that generate increased immigration or more robust fertility rates. Indeed, there have been modest—very modest—increases in the number of foreign residents in Japan over the past twenty years, with a little over twice the number today (2,134,151) as compared to 1990 (1,075,317). Many towns have developed international centers where opportunities are developed and supported, creating contexts for interactions between local residents and foreigners such as a monthly English dinner hosted in the town where I have done fieldwork for several years.

Government officials have often explained to me that one of the goals of these initiatives is to create contexts in which Japanese people can interact, and thus become more comfortable with, foreigners. The widespread presence of foreign English teachers supported through the JET program and other English language programs has also meant that, unlike forty for fifty years ago, most younger Japanese have grown up regularly interacting with individuals from other countries. At the same time, there has been some immigration of women from other Asian countries, such as the Philippines, into rural parts of Japan for the purpose of marrying men who otherwise would have had difficulties finding a wife among the native population. These developments may allow for increased openness to immigration in the future, although for the most part, the Japanese government has remained lukewarm, at best, when it comes to allowing any significant increase in the number of permanent residents or immigrants. Naturalized Japanese citizenship remains difficult to obtain.

While predicting the future of these demographic trends is difficult, the causes are at least somewhat decipherable. The proximate cause of population decline in Japan are fairly clear: a low fertility combined with increased life expectancy has led to a population structure that is increasingly weighted towards older members of society. Currently there are significantly fewer people under 30 than there are between the ages of 30 and 60. As the population of middle-aged individuals grows older and dies, there will be far fewer people remaining behind. In other words, the current middle-aged generation of Japanese has failed to replace itself. The question, of course, is why?

Various studies of demographic change in Japan have linked declining fertility to other changing social factors such as increased education, delayed marriage age, more economic opportunities for women, and the expense of raising children in modern, urban societies. All of these have played a role in reducing fertility over the past few decades. In addition, beyond delayed marriage many Japanese have chosen not to marry and, as a result, not have children. According to the 2010 census, 30% of all households in Japan were single, representing the largest category of household composition in the country. A significant portion of these households were widows over the age of 65. At the same time, a not insignificant portion were women and men in both early adulthood and middle-age who have simply chosen to not get married. In a society like Japan where child-birth out of wedlock is stigmatized, the decision not to marry also normally means that one has chosen not to have children.

Indeed, there are many women in Japan today in their forties and fifties who have opted for a career over marriage and child-rearing. In Japan, social pressures make it difficult for women to manage a career while also raising a family. Furthermore, recent trends suggest that both men and women are increasingly uncertain about the value of marriage and having a family. A government survey of people between the ages of 18 and 34 in 2011 showed that over 61% of unmarried men among those surveyed lacked a girlfriend and 49.5% unmarried women had no boyfriend, the latter being a new record. Forty percent of respondents indicated that there was no need to marry and 45% of men showed no interest in "dating the opposite sex." These results, which represented significant increases over the same type of survey conducted in previous years, have raised concerns that the population problem Japan is facing will not change in the foreseeable future.

The consequences of changing attitudes about marriage and gender roles and associated low fertility are considerable. One problem that has arisen is that many single women are living on very low incomes and have joined the ranks of the poor. Recent research has shown that 1 in 3 single women of working age in Japan qualify as poor and that the number of poor women in Japan is likely to increase; by 2030 it is projected that 1 in 5 women in Japan will be single. Many of these women may well be living in some level of poverty.

Another problem Japan faces is that the general low fertility rate means there are not enough younger people paying into the national pension program, and this will cause increasing strain on government coffers as the proportion of elderly (currently about 23% of the population is over 65) continues to grow.

Finally, the decline of the population over the next few decades, and the shortage of young people in particular, will have a significant impact on the Japanese labor force. Questions related to how to maintain economic growth—an issue that has been at the forefront of thinking about the country for the past twenty years, due to a generally sluggish economy—with a decreasing population are both complex and on the minds of policymakers. One obvious solution to this would be for Japan to relax immigration policies and allow for more workers, particularly healthcare workers, to enter the country. As noted above, to date this has not been a particularly palatable solution, but this may well change as younger Japanese, with regular experience and interactions with foreigners, move into positions of power and guide policy.

An alternative to this social-centered solution of increased immigration has been raised in recent years. Rather than relaxing immigration laws, some have proposed increasing investment in robotics as a means of addressing the conflict of a shortfall of labor with the need for workers. This idea has been raised particularly in relation to elder care, where demand for workers has increased rapidly with the promulgation of the longer term care insurance program in 2001 and the continued growth of the elderly population. It may well be that a technological solution to Japan’s population problem will be seen as preferable to other possible solutions.

Obviously, only time will tell. But Japan is faced with an unprecedented population challenge that will have social, economic, and political consequences over the next century—consequences that will not only affect Japan, but also influence Japan’s trading partners as well as its political and military allies.

There is, perhaps, no single variable in the complex web of East Asian politics more uncertain in terms of how it may influence future relations throughout the region than the fate of Japan’s population, because the manner in which that population changes over the next several decades is both difficult to predict and likely to have a profound influence in shaping the regional role Japan is able to play as a political, cultural, and economic power.

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The very well-known Japanese SUKI (tm) RELIGION, The New World Religion (tm), is named the "motherfucking religion" with over two million members worldwide. Unfortunately, like much of Japan, it is quite short of motherfuckers.

Also, listen to how HORRID it is that a population doesn't continue to grow. GFD if it fails to grow, everything collapses.

I have to agree with you here Trav. The whole tone of this idiot's thesis is "declining population = catastrophe". Why? What is wrong with a declining population, and why should a declining population be WORSE than a steadily growing one? What if Japan was actually overpopulated, and is now merely reaching its ideal population level?

Similarly, where is it carved in stone that an economy MUST grow in order to be "healthy", however one choses to define healthy? Name one organism in nature, aside maybe from cancer, that grows indefinitely and without limit. Is THAT really the model that we as a society should be emulating?

Society will adapt. We've already changed a lot. Seniors may have passed their peak earning years, but they continue to spend and invest and influence culture and live active and even productive lives. In many respects, the 'career' of the last generation was a kind of multi-decadal indentured servitude. Who's to say that the pension funding model can't be replaced by something much more personal and self-determined? WE DON'T NEED THE BIG GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS OF THE LAST GENERATION. WHAT WE NEED IS TO TAKE CONTROL OF OUR OWN LIVES.

Never mind the talk of 'robotics.' Technology allows few people to accomplish more. Our measures of 'sustainability' (hate that word, no thanks to Agenda 21) need to be reconsidered. Don't let other people write your story for you. Never mind the media focus on collective, communitarian 'sustainability.' Think in terms of sustainability for yourself and your family, and you will be a lot more at ease with your future.

I wonder how much the Fukushima radiation is affecting the Japanese population. We haven't seen anything in that regard, yet I understand that radiation is still pouring out.

"Why? What is wrong with a declining population" just across the Sea of Japan there are 25 million swinging dicks who gots no bitchez.. These dicks is going to get pissed shortly and some small island nationalistic fervor ( set in motion by their masters) will set them off and they will come for a visit. Now don't start with "China got no sealift capability" By the time it comes to that no one will have any just 1/2 million fishing boats.. I give it 5 years..

Demography is destiny, Japan is dead, soon in historical terms to be someones colony.

A highly radioactive colony. I like the Japanese. They seem to be very smart but then they do really stupid things.

They have gone into debt at a race worse than the USA. Oba-MAO and Bernake are catching up and will pass them. The Japnese just seem to make catastrophic mistakes. The Yakuza have so much influence. Japan built stupid money wasting projects but a better breakwater would have saved Fukashima. There is a nuke plant north of Fuka and the breakwater was a few feet higher and was unscathed.

Normally, a shrinking population would make each individual wealthier in real terms. But there's a problem once the "population" as a group is in debt: there are fewer slaves to repay the excessive spending of their ancestors, and they all must work even harder, or the debt holders must take a haircut, or both.

The "game" was always about growth. But, as you clearly note, the game has gotten to the point that there's just no way out, it ain't going to hold up under contraction.

We're all going to get blasted by this. Sadly, the age-old popular instruction manuals gave us conflicting information: go forth and multiply; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (didn't warn of the ramifications of exponential growth)...

Despite the current trade deficit, they are still in debt to themselves ...

When you state that a shrinking population makes each individual wealthier you are already ignoring the wealth distribution ... and internal debt is just an aspect of wealth distribution. So you're being inconsistent.

ZH should give population scaremongering a rest, and good luck to western countries that think immigration is the answer to everything. Ever heard of "behavioral sink"? The present problem in Japan is mostly caused by overpopulation, not low birth rate.

Without growth who will pay the pensions and healthcare of Japan's rapidly growing number of retirees? How will Japan defend itself economically or militarily against a rapidly growing and correspondingly assertive and aggressive China? Without growth comes little or no technological advancement in relation to international competition, which is basically what supports Japan and without which Japan couldn't even feed itself. Japan will either have to grow or die, and since the men are now all limp dicks and the women emotionally vacuous bitches, Japan will soon either need to embrace immigration, or immigrants will forcefully flood into Japan like a conquoring barbarian horde.

Well, for once Trav I agree with you. Have the guys since the level of pollution around the world and resources constraints. Every other OECD nation should follow the lead of Japan. That is the responsible thing to do. Shrink the population.

12 Trillion USD in Japanese debt, plus whatever is accumulated over the coming years, is going to get awfully burdensome for a population that is going to decline by 24%. No wonder the Bank of Japan has decided to join the global print-fest.

Coming to a country near you. Must have been part of the NWO plan putting a cluster of nuke plants on the coast over a major fault line. Oh, wait... isn't there one in our most populous state? Hmmmmmmmm.... Perfect plan for a "Beneficial Corporation" to establish a nuke power plant near you.

I know, I must be getting to be a conspiracy theorist. It could be the on line company I've been keeping.

I wasn't sure you were the old trav7777, as the style and demonstrated cynical intellect did not seem the same as before. I have been waiting for your old buddy Cliff to come along and render the final verdict. After this comment here, however, Cliff isn't needed.

Reducing population levels is not the answer. Our planet could very easily and comfortably support over 20 times its current population, and possibly 1000 times, while having zero poverty, pollution or crowding and no water or food shortages. The problem relates to mismanagement, incompetence and greedy shorsightedness over the way our current living arrangements are carried out and organized.

Well, there may be some truth to that, though I don't profess to know the Japanese culture that well.

Perhaps, and I'd think that this is the more relevant issues, their country cannot support more people? The cost of living can only keep going up as energy becomes tighter (regardless of the nuke situation, which has managed to show that the financial sector isn't the king when it comes to externalization of risk).

Years ago the Australian govt was paying the whites there to have children. They were worried about being overrun by Asians. This on a landmass that is way over-burdened. Can you say shoot-yourself-in-the-foot?

The reference to Logan's Run, however, was one of the first things I thought about when I saw this article pop up. Mentioning it should not mean being shot down (though for bob to bring it up, and in that manner...). I never offer "solutions," but believe that everything should be talked about in order to better understand what the problem really is.

Why stop there? Do you not fear inheritance, especially after all the Boomer cross-breeding? If you are truly serious, does it not make more sense to go after the young'uns, since most all are still fertile unlike the post-menopausal Boomer women and the original target market of Viagra? Just trying to be practical here.

Give massive tax incentives, and or bonus Yen to couples to have as many kids as possible NOW,even if they subsidize them, their exoxtence is dependent on it.

Otherwise they are DOA.

Unlike us, we allow far too many immigrants in,(BECAUSE we murdered 50 million americans that would have for the most part turned into productive citizens) and the original citizens quickly are becoming the new minorities.

I was watchng Fox Business today and this guy came on discussing Japan as well. He pointed out that the idiots thinking that today's jobs numbers were a great sign were deluded. The USA is Japan, but 10 years behind. I found his blog.

I envy the Japanese. Here in Germany we also have the same decline in the birth rate, but a criminal regime has flooded Europe with a third world population that is EXPLODING, while the Germans and Europeans pay for their own genocide.

Central Europe is - like Japan - overpopulated anyway and a shrinking population would be a blessing for everyone and mother nature.

But "thanks" to a completely unnatural and sick interest slavery system, that collapses without GROWTH, which means exponential consumption of resources, MSM media are in full force for propaganda mode pro immigration because Shylock wants endless pounds of flesh...

Ofcourse the "elite" is not living in the mutlicultural ghettos - pardon: paradise - they are living in their segregated villas and their children are sent to expensive private schools.

A very diabolical system that claims genocide and eternal war WITHIN societies, was something that would be wonderful while everyone not agreeing with this HUGE LIE is daemonized.

Therefore i envy and admire the Japanese. Their population will shrink in numbers, they will have to deal with some economic problems for a certain time, until a new equilibrium for the modern way of life will be found (more people who do not want children compared to times, where children also were life savers when people became old), but the japanese people, the society, the unique culture of this people and their community will stay fully intact and therefore will stay robust (if i compare the multicultural society under a desaster like Kathrina with the behaviour of a homogeneous nation, a people, when a desaster that is even worse, like Fukushima, happens, i just become sick, what is happening to the nations of european descent and what they allow is done to them...).

Fuckers like Mike Krieger voted for the present pig. A racial vote. Out of guilt or trying to have "evidence" to prove a negative. Futile, but such is the way of the conditioned.

The majority has elected multicult here too. And they will destroy themselves. It's pretty simple and it has a nice, clean historical arc to it. See, nature doesn't care what we value; it has its own forces of creation and destruction. We might think this or that mountain is pretty and nature decides to blow it up. Nature might burn down a forest we like and it's barren for longer than a human lifespan. Mt. St. Helens is still surrounded by barren territory even 30 years now later.

the cretin brown population is simply the force of destruction coming to wipe away what was created. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It won't be the end of white society or white people, but it is the end of the expansion of "enlightenment" and "western civilization" and all of this. Brown people don't give a shit about women's rights and this crap. A woman in africa is more likely to be raped than graduate high school. What this says to apparently only people who are intelligent enough to see forests for trees is that the population there values rape more than education for women. It's really that bluntly true...stupid is as stupid DOES. Core values are expressed via action.

It's pretty clear that the expansion phase of creative society is over and now things go the other direction. Eventually, there may be another reawakening; who knows. But countries such as Germany and the rest of them are either going to wake the fuck up NOW or else they are lost. But waking up, just like I keep saying, is going to require slaying a lot of sacred jewish cows and deenergizing a lot of jew-powered 3rd rails.

Or to put it another way, it's going to require acting SHAMELESSLY ethnocentrically and discriminatory, like jews do.

There's nothing of value in any culture just because it's a culture. Fuck the injuns, fuck savages. Nobody, even THEM, likes their own culture. They always want to have what others have. But to say these things is apocryphal; people won't go near this even if they're only THINKING the thoughts. It's too scary; being racist is REALLY THAT EVIL. But that's a learnt response. And it's a fiction. But whatever.

I don't know if you check back on your posts, but I agree with what you are saying.

But you say "It's pretty clear that the expansion phase of creative society is over and now things go the other direction.'

I'm taking my talents to Thailand where my wife is from - with our 2 kids - and I will feel MUCH better helping out hard-working, happy locals instead of this waste-of-space entitlement society of worthless fucks. I refuse to support it.

1. Japan is overcrowded now, hence overpopulated, so population decline is a good thing ... but can cause problems if too fast. China will have the same issues shortly.

2. An easy solution is to increase the percentage of women in the work force. Now most women who get married stop working. If they were encouraged to continue working you would have a) more workers and b) more women getting married. So more taxpayers, more workers and more kids.

In vitro fertilization and egg implantation in surrogate mothers would seem to be a solution. Either Japanese women in their mid forties to late fifties whose career has peaked or paying third world woman to bear Japanese children. I am surprised governments facing demographic decline have not yet begun to 'manufacture' replacement citizens in this way.

Along with robotics, Japan may also want to consider making Humanzees or implanting human genes into apes to create more capable animals.

Corporate salary man goes out with buddies after work for drinking and hookers or comes home to his sex doll - quiet, submmissive or gets off on cartoon or schoolgirl pornography. I suspect there's a reason Japanese women are choosing career over marriage.

And thus we turn a society and a culture into an economic equation. The homogeneous Japanese have to allow foreigners into the nation because, a) it's good for the economy and b).....well, there is no "b." A population, like an economy, does not have to have continuous growth in order to be healthy and stable. They both rise and fall according to forces beyond the control of those in power. Any effort to decrease it or increase destabilizes it.

97 million is still an overburden on a very crowded land. I expect the Japanese born today when he/she reaches middle age and finds much more space, mouch more demand for labor, lowered food prices due to less demand and less energy imports needed to fuel the 97 million would have ZERO desire to live in a much more crowded land. It is not like anyone is being killed off, it is a natural drop to a more sane population load.

Those who piss, cry and moan about it are a few elites who want exponential growth. They care only about increased profits not a more sustainable and livable Japan. Screw this fetish for ever growing populations. The people are just coming into balance with their world. But the lunatic exponential growth crowd who know zero about the laws of physics and math think that economic growth can only happen in a growing population base. I call major BS on that old 20th century notion. In case some people haven't notice, we are already well into the 21st century!

Okay, but you get to be the one to tell them their demographics preclude a ponzi-scheme welfare state like what they built last century, and their pension system is an insolvent house of cards! No givesies-backsies! Haha!

But seriously, not much hope that they will be able to manage the transition. They'll do it, and almost certainly get through it better than most other advanced economy societies, but it won't be pretty or fun.

The great idea of modern Economic Theory - You NEED to import people to make and do stuff and increase the population, who then need more people to be imported to make and do stuff and increase the population. Really smart thinking, it’s a great pity that this policy has been followed in most Western Countries and that it worked out so well!

And this idea goes to prove that the Economic Elite who think they are so smart cannot understand

1.Space – that is dimensions or land per person ( take the UK all the food they produce on that island will not even feed the people of London)

2.Finite – Limited resources , restricted food supplies

So in short they are not the brightest or the best they are Full Retard

I don´t get it: Why increase the workforce if they have an unemployment problem. Why?

My impression is rather that the Japanese people need more capital income, not a larger workforce. You got the same problem in Europe and the US. If robots and computers can do jobs that previously required a human workforce the demand for labour shrinks. You don´t need all those people if you got robots and computers.

not sure where to begin on a proper criticism of this submission. There are a variety of reason for the dip in population not addressed in this article. For those really interested there are better sources of information available via a search engine. Also a similar condition exists in South Korea which I think it is fair to say has little to do with the "unique" Japanese perspective many claim as the source of the problem.

It's going to get really interesting in the next week or so, when the import cost pipeline explodes for the Japanese. That nut-job Abe is going to get his ass ass chewed bigtime, as inventories get re-stocked with parabolic price increases.

Japan imports everything but radioactive fish... Japans citizenism is going to shit it's pants with the yen devaluation, and sales tax increases that are coming. I predict a strong retrace in usd/jpy next week. There is major resistance in the 93.50 area. The runaway train is about to derail if it's speed isn't kept in check...

the reason that those places are like they are and japan is like it is is because of WHITE RACISM. And oppression and all of that.

Once Africans move to Japan, they will fit right in and be just like brown japs with gigantic lips...there's no inborn difference between any of these races; it's just a social construct that curiously can be tested for with DNA marker analysis.

The Japanese are reducing their population gradually and to the benefit of everyone. The U.S. on the other hand will grow and grow with legal and illegal immigrants until the conditions are intolerable and then there will be a population cliff with a devastating collapse. Your choice.

I thought raising my children with my own money was the way to go. If I had done it the right way (Obama's way), I would have knocked up a couple of women and had the state raise their children in section 8 housing and public schools.

The state wants the middle class to have more kids, but at $250K a pop to raise them, not many are taking the bait What can go wrong?

Various studies of demographic change in Japan have linked declining fertility to other changing social factors such as increased education, delayed marriage age, more economic opportunities for women, and the expense of raising children in modern, urban societies.

Don't for get to mention that men are smarter and don't want to be used as ATM's,

Japan, like all countries is massively over-populated with humans. The country would thrive as a non-industrial nation with 1/10 the current population giving desperately needed relief to natural services that require the absence of humans.

The idea of gigantic populations serves the interests of tycoons and plutocrats who play one person against the next for wage-gaiin. Massive populations also provide a putative market for industrial output. Both of these dynamics accelerate the unraveling of industry as wage/income returns are needed to justify more credit to the firm.

There is a gain from jettisoning industrial output because industry cannot meet- or bear its own costs ... when credit runs out the result is the bankruptcy ... of firms and the nation.

BTW, if the humans add bad luck to their demonstrated stupidity and greed the 'population issue' will be irrelevant as humans follow Dodo Birds, Passenger Pigeons and Mastodons into well-deserved extinction.

1. A massive culling of population as a result of disease, famine, war ...

OR

2. A total decimation of the planet as a result of all out nuclear war as billions fight for scarce resources

OR

3. Small elites backed by powerful militias will live like the kings and emperors of past centuries, there will be a small nobility of white collar workers, ZERO middle class... then massive numbers living, working and fighting to feed themselves.

Their practice of limiting immigration preserves their culture and their race which is clearly superior to unnamed others. there may be an optimum number of people considering their land mass and amount of arable land. Most of our serious problems are directly related to historical bad choices in the composition of our population and it is getting worse. Multiculturalism and diversity historically been political and cultural disasters. The USA only worked because in the past assimulation was demanded and bad actors were deported or jailed or faced capital punishment to keep the gene pool clean.

first of all, this guy and anyone who thinks like him is stupid. greater productivity with a smaller population means more wealth per capita. a good thing, isn't it?

the easter island model is the best model. right?

in a post post modern world japan is the leader. productivity gains reduces population as the need for labor declines. the closed door immigration policy shows the net result of progress in a controlled environment. is this the key to human survival? if productivity based upon technology reduces population and reduced population translates to reduced consumption of resources then does the world continue to thrive? or are humans on an inevitable path to easter island? is the path to save the world a hyper modernization that will naturally cull the population as productivity rises or is it a massive population destruction event and a return to an aboriginal indian lifestyle that will give humans the time necessary to save the species?

in any event, let's kill all bankers first to see what that does for the human race.

Modern welfare states have no need of many children to support their parents in their old age so populations decline which eventually lead to a dearth of taxpayers to support an aging population over a span of time.

Most all of the modern (post WW2) welfare states are faced with the same population decline and the nations with the barest of safety nets are still expanding.

The state can design society all it likes but they can never overcome the fact that humans do what they do because it works, albeit not without frictions and imbalances.

One could easily make the argument that the notion of paying your way through your non productive later years from savings without a corresponding replacement in productive workers was a post war aberration brought about by an exponential increase in productivity via technology and efficiency and in the end an unsustainable model once those rapid income gains begin to diminish or flatten out by govt.s siphoning off a larger share and an increasing number of former third world countries sharing the pie.

I learned Japanese and went to Japan many years ago and based on what I saw concluded that they live in the future: in some ways, their day to day living is like something out of Blade Runner or Minority Report.

The problems they've run into just anticipate the problems we will run into (if we are lucky - the alternative path is that we will all live in Detroit like in the movie "Looper")

From what I saw and have read, I've also concluded that the Japanese have a *really* serious problem in making decisions - leading to a society that is not very agile in confronting new problems, or bold enough to make painful decisions which might ruffle establishment feathers.

The results are Fukushima, Sony having lost their mojo vis a vis the Koreans, and a general lack of innovation from a population that is talented enough to do much, much better but has a schlerotic layer of clueless managers...

On the other end, we know that there is no way for human population to continue growing indefinitely without fully depleting the planet's resources. It may be centuries away, but it is bound to happen. Population has to either stabilize or decline for the planet to remain sustainable. So some "disaster" now may actually be good in the long term for land-constrained Japan. Forget about the markets and stuff.

So, on the one hand, we all feel vaguely worried when we hear that the global population has passed a new billion mark (as it did in Oct 2011), but when a country's population starts to revert to a level that is probably more in line with what said country can actually support, it's a "demographic disaster" ? People are really indocrinated with that "growth in everything is good" philosophy.

1. Almost every country in the world has been experiencing a rapid decline in total fertility rates (i.e. the number of children the average woman bears during her reproductive lifetime).

2. Every developed country has a total fertility rate below the replacement level (the replacement level is about 2.1).

3. Japan is merely a more pronounced case of what is happening throughout the developed world.

4. While the aging/shrinking demographics of the developed countries is by now well-known, what most people still don't seem to realize is that many developing countries have sub-replacement fertility rates, too.

5. Mexico and Iran are both going to experience a Big Wave of Grey, as of course will China. Iran has a sub-replacement fertility rate despite its socially conservative, theocratic government!

6. What has been really stunning have been the plummeting fertility rates in India, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. Kenya's fertility rate is still high, but it's dropped by over two-thirds in less than 20 years.

7. World population is going to max out sooner, and at a lower level, than was ever predicted by experts.

8. We've gotten used to such terms as "peak oil." Get ready for "peak labour." For a long time many countries could simply import cheap people as a growth tonic. Those days are going to come to an end.